Woods: Kaiserism and Heredity 



351 



into effect, and have openly married 

 her. But his mad career was frus- 

 trated. The unhappy girl fell ill, with 

 shame may be, and died. Caius was 

 l)]unged in a frenzy of despair. 



"Unable to find rest in his Alban 

 villa, the mad prince roved through the 

 cities of Ital}' and Sifily, and let his 

 hair grow in token of sorrow. He 

 would thenceforth swear by no other 

 oatli than the divinity of Drusilla. 

 . . . But now intoxicated with power 

 and elevation, he became convinced of 

 his own deification. . . . Philo tells 

 us the line of reason Caligula pursued : 

 'If the shepherds are of a different 

 order from the sheep they pasture, and 

 the bullock-drivers from the cattle un- 

 der their rods, then I must be distinct 

 and superior in kind from the mortals 

 I rule.' 



"He assumed a beard of finely beaten 

 gold thread, and passed along the 

 streets, thus adorned, to be saluted as 

 Jupiter ; then he would appear with 

 wings at his heels and adjusted to his 

 cap, to represent Mercury ; then with a 

 bow and quiver, his head surrounded 

 by flashing rays, as Apollo. It was even 

 said that he attempted to jjass himself 

 off, in appropriate costume, as one or 

 other of the goddesses. . . . He 

 went about surrounded by a train of at- 

 tendants, who were dressed as the 

 nfinisters of the deity he was pleased 

 to personate at the time, and his gold 

 statue was supplied with suits of 

 clothes which were changed daily to 

 correspond with those worn by Cali- 

 gula. He ordered the most famous 

 statues to be brought from Greece, and 

 then removed their heads and substi- 

 tuted his own for theirs. 

 "Drunk with flattery, and with sudden 

 succession to absolute power . . . 

 'abandoned himself to wine and 

 glutton}-." " 



"The inordinate \anity of Caius 

 made him resent anyone being thought 

 to be better than himself in any way. 

 In his insensate jealously, he forbade 

 the Pompeii to bear the name of Mag- 

 nus and the Torquati to wear their 

 i]jolden torques, and the Cincinnati to 



rtourish a curl on their temples, as he- 

 reditary badges of their illustrious fam- 

 ilies. \\nien Ptolemy, son of King 

 Juba. and his own cousin, whom he 

 had invited to Rome, entered the thea- 

 ter in his purple robe of rovalty, all the 

 spectators rose to stare at him. This so 

 stirred the bile of Caligula that he had 

 him put to death. There was in Rome 

 a very tall man who went by the name 

 of Colossus. Caligula, observing him 

 in the amphitheater, ordered him to be 

 dragged from his seat and thrust into 

 tlie arena, and forced to contend with 

 a gladiator, and when he proved more 

 than a match for this man. then with a 

 second. On his worsting this op- 

 ponent also, he commanded the tall 

 fellow to be bound, clothed in rags, and 

 drawn up and down the streets, and 

 after being exhibited in this sorry plight 

 to the women, to be then butchered. 

 There was, says .Suetonius, no man, of 

 however mein a condition, whom he did 

 not envy, if that man were suspected 

 of any excellence that might excite his 

 envy." 



Such then, is the picture of Caligula. 

 The above is but a fraction of all that 

 is brought together — testimony in its 

 completeness and in its corroboration 

 undeniable and unassailed. The same 

 may be said of Nero. Testimony re- 

 mains of such a nature that historians 

 are forced to retain the view that Nero 

 was of a type of bestiality and cruelty 

 rarely exhibited among the world's 

 sovereigns. 



Here, then, is our first arg"ument in 

 favor of the hereditary origin of the 

 characteristics of Caligula. Many 

 thousands of absolute rulers have ex- 

 isted in history. Only a very few of 

 these have been as debased as either 

 Caligula or Nero, yet Caligula and 

 Nero, two extreme examples, were as 

 closely related as uncle and nephew. 

 We only realize how close this relation- 

 ship is when we remember that all the 

 ancestors of any man's uncle are also 

 ancestors of his own. In addition to 

 this is the fact that of all women in his- 

 tory, few, it anv, can show a blacker 

 record than Agrippina "the Younger," 



